Politics

Boehner, Reid: The Guys Who Won't Budge

(NEWSER) – The government shutdown is dragging on thanks in no small part to two men: John Boehner and Harry Reid. Boehner, the Washington Post points out, could almost certainly pass a clean CR and end the shutdown if he wanted to—but he'd have to rely on a coalition of mostly Democrats and a handful of GOP moderates (19 are on record as supporting it). Doing that would weaken his hand in debt ceiling negotiations, blow up his uneasy alliance with the Tea Party, and probably cost him his speaker gig.